'Manchurian Candidate' relevance as strong as ever

Fifty years after it was first released, "The Manchurian Candidate" not only resonates, it holds a place in American lexicon.

Lori Gilbert

Fifty years after it was first released, "The Manchurian Candidate" not only resonates, it holds a place in American lexicon.

"The notion has held up. Both in popular culture and politics, the Manchurian candidate kind of character continues to have a place," said Brian Klunk, a professor of political science at University of the Pacific.

The 1962 film about a Korean War veteran who was brainwashed by the communists and two years later sent to assassinate a political candidate, screens today at 7 p.m. at the Bob Hope Theatre. The latest offering in the Friends of the Fox classic film series, "The Manchurian Candidate" stars Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh.

Released in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis and eight years after Joe McCarthy was sent packing, "The Manchurian Candidate" touches on Cold War fears, mind control and the horror of communists taking over the U.S. government. It's based on a satirical novel by Richard Condon and director John Frankenheimer combines the thriller aspects with the satire.

"The Manchurian Candidate" not only took McCarthyism to task, as did other works of the period, most famously Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," it created a pop culture device.

"In the 'Homeland' television series right now, there's a Manchurian candidate kind of character," Klunk said. "He was a prisoner in Iraq and now is back to carry out terrorist actions on behalf of some enemies."

The most recent installment of "Battlestar Gallactica" also had a Manchurian candidate, Klunk said, but the notion of an individual in a position of power acting on suggestions because he's been brainwashed isn't limited to fiction.

"Over the last two presidential cycles," Klunk said, "some of the nastier blogs accused John McCain, who'd been a prisoner of war in Vietnam, of being a potential Manchurian candidate. This year, a PAC supporting Ron Paul did the same thing with John Huntsman, who was the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin. And, it's all over the place in reaction to President Obama. In more respectable outlets, the use of Manchurian candidate ideas is he's not really an American, he's a hidden Muslim and he wants to impose European social policies that will change forever the character of the country."

Fear of what might happen is what makes "The Manchurian Candidate" a good thriller.

"It plays on the conspiratorial part of us. It's one of the reasons it continues to resonate," Klunk said.

It also resonates because of the quality of Frankenheimer's work. He cast brilliantly, with Angela Lansbury, of Mrs. Potts and Jessica Fletcher fame, turning in an unforgettable icy portrayal of the incestuous, manipulative conniving mother.

Critics at the time dismissed the folly of the plot, but admit the storyline works because it's presented as a taut thriller.

They tried to steer movie goers away from the notion of mind control, but Klunk said it's not a subject easily dismissed.

"The Manchurian candidate character keeps popping up because it grows out of concerns that the Chinese and North Koreans had been brainwashing prisoners of war," Klunk said. "There were efforts by the Nazis to experiment with mind control, and for that matter, the CIA, during the '50s, '60s and '70s had programs to see if LSD or other psychoactive chemicals could enable mind control or brain washing, Manchurian candidate kinds of things. All of that comes out of real things that are going on, and real concerns like why prisoners of war would sign confessions or why they'd issue statements supporting the enemy and criticizing their own country."

That nugget of possibility, along with the fine script and performances make "The Manchurian Candidate" a winning entry in the classic film series.